5 Movie Deaths That Should Have Been Really Easy to Avoid

Whenever filmmakers concoct a death scene for one of their characters, presumably the idea is for us, the viewers, to think something like "Oh my God, how tragic" or "Hell yes! That dick had it coming." They don't usually set out to make us mutter "Now why the fuck did that just happen?" And yet, as we've shown before, sometimes a movie character's death seems a bit forced. For example, we almost choked on a pretzel just now, and we still aren't dumb enough to die like people in ...

Kurt Hendricks, the Swedish-Russian villain in the fourth Mission: Impossible installment, is a bad guy straight out of the 1980s: He's rich, ominously foreign, and wants to start a nuclear war between the United States and Russia.

Paramount PicturesNo, he doesn't explain why. What, do you need to be spoon-fed?

To do this, he acquires a nuclear launch control device, which we'll assume is code named "Joshua" and can be deactivated by forcing it to play a game of tic-tac-toe. During the climax, Hendricks uses the device to fire a Russian nuclear missile at San Francisco before tucking the device inside his briefcase. Ethan Hunt chases Hendricks to the upper level of a parking garage, where, with only minutes left until the missile strikes, Hunt barks out, "I'M TAKING THAT BRIEFCASE." Hendricks responds in the only way he logically can: by leaping several stories to his death, taking the briefcase with him.

Wait a Second ...

Couldn't he have just, you know, tossed the briefcase down there? There was no reason to toss himself along with it, unless his feelings were just really, really hurt by Hunt's rude outburst.

Paramount Pictures"How dare he offer such impertinence! And while looking so inexplicably youthful!"

Hendricks' strategy is to keep Hunt away from the device long enough for the missile to strike San Francisco. He's willing to sacrifice his own life for this plan, which is commendable, but also entirely pointless. Hunt doesn't care about catching Hendricks at this point, he just cares about the device -- Hendricks could have simply thrown the briefcase down there and tucked away a few levels of Candy Crush while Hunt sprinted off to try to catch the thing in time.

Obviously, Hendricks' decision backfires in a huge way when Hunt plunges down several stories inside a car ...

Paramount PicturesCruise drove the car horizontally; they built the set sideways.

... and manages to crawl over to the device and stop the missile in the nick of time.

Paramount PicturesTen minutes after it was launched. It's a weird plot.

Had Hendricks not made that irrationally deadly jump, he could have at least tried to stop Hunt -- drive another car down there, pee on him a little, we don't know. Instead, he was too dead to do anything but lie there, being dead.

#4. Prometheus -- Why Not Run to the Side?

20th Century Fox

Near the end of Alien: The Adventure Begins (known in some markets as Prometheus), a huge alien spacecraft comes crashing down toward the planet that the only two surviving characters, Elizabeth Shaw and Meredith Vickers, happen to be standing on. The spacecraft then starts rolling toward them, because this is a very stupid movie.

20th Century FoxHow can things roll when there's no nitrogen? Answer THAT, Lindelof!

Shaw and Vickers run for their lives, and while Shaw manages to survive, Vickers is pancaked to death by a spaceship.

Wait a Second ...

Did we mention that this alien spacecraft is a circular wheel-shaped object and is positioned like so when it rolls toward Shaw and Vickers?

20th Century FoxPrometheus is shaped like a croissant, just like in the Greek myth.

And did we mention that all they had to do to save themselves was move a little to the right? Or the left? Or, really, any direction but forward or backward? Seriously. Any direction. Not even quickly -- just flop on the ground and roll to the side like a dropped hot dog and you'll be safe. We know this as a fact, because that's precisely how Shaw survived:

20th Century FoxShe saw the path in her side view because she'd kept her helmet on.

Meanwhile, Vickers sticks to the original plan, which is "running in a straight line until the ship disintegrates by itself." It's like she's momentarily unaware that there is more than one dimension in our universe.

20th Century FoxIf she wanted to get really creative, she could have used height and burrowed into the ground.

No, really look at this image:

20th Century FoxAll right, there are flames to her right, but her left's free and clear.

It's not even a large distance, just a few dozen feet. She's essentially letting herself get run over by a very big train because she doesn't want to leave the tracks.

#3. Scream 2 -- Guns Can Be Used for Defensive Purposes

Dimension Films

Here's the situation: The protagonist, Sidney, and her best friend, Hallie, are sitting in the back of a police car with an unconscious masked killer in the driver's seat and an impaled cop all over the windshield.

Dimension FilmsTuesday.

Since the Killah, Ghostface, is unconscious, Sidney and Hallie take the opportunity to escape from the car and make a run for it. However, Sidney suddenly decides to return to the accident scene in order to remove Ghostface's mask and find out his identity, thus sparing us 40 more minutes of this shit. She does just that, only to discover that Ghostface is no longer in the car. Sidney then turns around to see the killer sneaking up behind Hallie and stabbing her.

Wait a Second ...

It's not Sidney's fault that she blew the escape attempt and got her friend killed ... it is totally her fault that they tried to escape in the first place, considering that they had a dead cop's gun to defend themselves with, like, right fucking there.

Dimension FilmsIt didn't even fly out of his grasp, because of math.

And the cop was pointing the gun right at the windshield before the car crashed, so it's not like Sidney didn't know he had it.

Dimension FilmsHe'd have fired, but the windshield wipers turned on and he started giggling.

In fact, it's only a few feet away from Sidney while she's climbing out of the car -- she appears to be looking straight at it.

After escaping the vehicle, all Sidney and Hallie had to do was pick up the gun and use it to hold Ghostface at bay until help arrived. Then they could have forced Ghostface to take off his own mask, or all his clothes for that matter, or just shot him if he tried any funny business. Sidney already fired a bullet into the killer's face at the end of the first Scream movie, so it's not like she has an aversion to guns.

If Hallie's death wasn't terrible enough, Sidney's actions indirectly cause another death later on, as Ghostface winds up taking the same gun for himself and using it to pump a bullet into Sidney's boyfriend.

Dimension FilmsSo she's responsible for the deaths of Hallie and Jesus.